


Haunted

by ThoughtsCascade



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Brain hemorrhage, Friendship, Other, Sharing Regeneration Energy, The Master fixes the Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26003341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtsCascade/pseuds/ThoughtsCascade
Summary: Sometimes a Time Lady needs to torture herself by going to see where her childhood lover took his now dead wife for their final date.Sometimes when that happens said Time Lady ends up tripping over someone on the ground.Sometimes said collapsed figure ends up being aforementioned childhood friend, because of course it does.
Relationships: First Doctor & Missy, The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17
Collections: Thoschei Prompt Exchange 2020





	Haunted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Raindropsonwhiskers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raindropsonwhiskers/gifts).



Sometimes a Time Lady needs to torture herself by going to see where her childhood lover took his now dead wife for their final date.

Sometimes when that happens said Time Lady ends up tripping over someone on the ground.

Sometimes said collapsed figure ends up being aforementioned childhood friend, because of course it does.

Not just any version of said childhood friend though, _no_ , the version who’s practically a _baby_ , still on his first regeneration. 

_That_ is the situation the Mistress currently finds herself in. 

With a sigh she leans down and picks him up, hauling her back to her own TARDIS to do a medical scan, seeing as his is nowhere in sight- and if it was around, she would _know_ , unless this is really early days, before he went to Earth and the silly thing settled as a police box. But she can’t imagine Susan would abandon her grandfather, and it’s _Darillium_. Not as if there’s anything dangerous here. 

The carrying is a bit _rough_ , which is unfortunate. But despite being- oh, at least a few thousand years younger if she has her maths right, he’s still managed to be damn near half a head taller. Strength isn’t part of the sexual dimorphism in Time Lords as it is with humans, thank the Other, but proportions still play a good part in the ease of carrying something.

Eventually she manages, making sure not to hit his head against anything as she steps in. If anything else happens to get hit… Well, their bodies seem to have roughly the same amount of wear and tear despite their vast age difference, though humans might be inclined to put him a decade or so older simply due to his own lack of upkeep.

Scruffy thing. She’d always had to fix him up, at the Academy. Fix his robes, his hair, everything really.

Now isn’t the time to focus on that. Now is the time to bring him to the medbay and figure out _what’s wrong_.

She knows almost everything about him. This had been one of the selves to take time off, watch things she’d missed in hopes of gaining new perspective. It was an important bit of upkeep, a fun activity every few bodies.

Well, not so much _fun_ …

Actually, no, that wasn’t quite true, was it? She’d had plenty of fun doing it, this time around. Not wanting to kill him might have had something to do with it. She’d just been… Well. She’d missed him, but that was neither here nor there given he’d tried to kill her on behalf of the girl, then gotten upset when Missy tried to trap her in a Dalek. 

Why should _Davros_ get mercy, considering how many of The Doctor’s pets he had killed, only for the Doctor to turn around to threaten _her?_ She’d _gifted_ him Clara, that meant she had every right to break the present if it was getting more attention than her to _prove a point_. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t made her empires crumble just because he was a wee bit jealous and got himself into a tiff over it. 

But she can’t be getting upset at his future self, even if he is a bit of a numpty. The _point_ is that she knows full well that this isn’t when his first regeneration is supposed to happen. He’d told her the story, back when they were together in UNIT, she hadn’t even needed spying or trickery to get that one from him. It had just come up in a conversation about regeneration, when he’d asked about hers and confided about his in turn.

She can’t help but miss those days- but… she does have an early version of him right here. Missy smiles down at him, beginning to scan him. What she sees has her paling, smile turning stricken.

According to her scanners, he’s… dying. Not regenerating, he’s either holding it back or something is stopping it, but _dying._

He’s not supposed to _die_ , he can’t _die_!

First off, he’s not _allowed_ to die, any more than she is!

Secondly, she _knows_ he doesn’t die at this point in his lives, and he’s _important_ , in a way no one else is, barring maybe _her_ , and even that is in the opposite way. Him dying would surely break Time beyond repair, with all he’d done, everyone he’d ever saved or condemned or influenced at all. Particularly without any Time Lords able to regulate it, since it’s much more logical to assume this him slipped into her timestream than vice versa, given the timelock around the War. Much easier to slip past in her direction where there isn’t anyone to regulate it than trying to go back and getting _caught._

_She_ has the expertise to avoid their detection, but lacks the will to go back. _He_ , particularly this version of him, _does not_ have either the _ability_ or the _inclination_. It must have been an accident. And now he’s dying.

So… she has to fix it. That’s all there is to it. 

She continues to scan, trying to figure out if he’s trying to hold it back for some undoubtedly _idiotic_ reason, or how it’s being blocked if not.

Actually, put like that and with the knowledge it’s _him,_ to assume it’s not the first suddenly seems to be folly.

She sighs, and the scanner finally does its job and shows her his injuries.  
  
Head. Internal bleeding. Of course. Why _wouldn’t_ he be having a brain hemorrhage of some sort?

What follows is a very grueling few hours of cutting open her best friend’s head- maybe he doesn’t consider her his best friend anymore, but he’s still _hers_ \- getting his blood on her hands in a way she’s long since ceased wanting and trying to fix the issue, because he’s not supposed to regenerate, meaning the problem has to be properly fixed so the need for the energy dissipates.

Frankly, the fact he’s managing to hold it back while unconscious is impressive and worrying in equal measure.

At least that’s a rather typical feeling to have about him. 

She finishes with a dramatic flourish and… nothing happens. He should be letting up with the block, letting the energy necessary heal him and the rest return to the stores. 

But that doesn’t seem to be happening. Admittedly, he doesn’t have any training, might not actually realize _how_ to use regeneration energy like that- she’d always been the book learner between the two of them, he just intuitively figured things out, broadly speaking. There were exceptions, and both were capable of both, but those were their general preferences, why she’d been top of the class (barring Ushas) while he’d nearly flunked out.

But he’s- _Stupid!_ He’s unconscious. Depending on how he placed the block, he probably can’t remove it. Which means…

She glances at a monitor. Her ship has been working to preserve his brain function, as well as the rest of him, but even a TARDIS can only do so much. She only has so much _time_ \- 

Fine. Missy can absolutely fix this. She brings her hand up, golden glow enveloping it as she carefully feeds small amounts of her regeneration energy into him, bit by bit to ensure she doesn’t give up more than she needs. She might care about the fate of her friend and the universe but she isn’t _altruistic_.

“Come on, Doctor. You’re not allowed to die yet,” she mutters.

Soon enough, the monitor beeps, her TARDIS trying to get her attention. She turns to it, and gradually tapers off the amount of energy she’s giving him down to nothing as she sees that his body seems to be recovering, his own regeneration energy finishing the job and then retreating, hers seeming to have jump-started the process— and admittedly nearly completed it— and removed the block he’d put up.  
  
The next _while_ is agonizing waiting. She has no idea, time being the last thing on her mind. Her sense of it this go has been a tad _wonky_ anyway, given the absence of the drums she’d grown to rely on even whilst cursing their presence. 

Eventually he stirs, her attention snapping back to him as it always inevitably does in the end. “Terribly sorry for trying to die on you without your permission, my dear,” he says, and _oh_ she missed him, from the early days. She wouldn’t trade in the one she’s got now but this voice is achingly familiar, and she’d given up on hearing it again the moment she had tracked his third body to UNIT. 

He sits up, looking around with a puzzled air. “Now, where exactly am I, hm? And who are you, for that matter?”

She hesitates. The proper thing to do would be make up a lie, fake being human or some other species she can pass as, let this incident fade from his memory. This is a precarious situation, the two of them crossing paths. 

Neither of them had ever much cared for the proper thing to do, much as they pretended otherwise when it suited them.

“So this is the thanks I get, saving your life? I’ve not changed that much, have I? I mean, got a new _accent_ , but you know full well that regeneration can do that.” That catches his attention, something only someone from home would say. She continues with a smirk. “I know you always copied my notes, but that class was _important_ , given that it’ll happen to you eleven times.” More than that as the version of him analogous to her proves, but no need to let him know ahead of time. Some things should be preserved.

“Master?”

She’s half-tempted to correct him, but from his perspective he hasn’t seen her since Gallifrey, won’t hear of her deeds, or those of the version of her analogous to him at any rate, until his next self. It would make no sense to him to hear she’d changed the title she’d chosen what must have been mere centuries ago to him. Not to mention the lack of question as to her title when he’d met her back at UNIT- he might forget this altogether, but best keep things consistent in case he doesn’t. “In the flesh,” she agrees instead. “Now, what exactly were you doing, wandering around with your _brains hemorrhaging_? By yourself, none the less? Last I heard you were travelling around with your granddaughter.”

  
He blinks at her mildly, still taking this self in apparently. “You’ve regenerated.”

She shouldn’t find just how slow he is on the uptake endearing, but it gets to her every time. “Yes, yes,” she agreed. “You’ve not answered my questions.”

“Oh? Yes, of course. Yes, yes, yes,” he agreed in a voice that would be dismissive if she didn’t know full well just how _short_ his attention span was, particularly this regeneration. He was miles away. She could wait for his mind to return to his body. “Tell me, dear, what is it like?”

He hides his worry well, even so young. Well, hides it well from anyone who isn’t her. It’s a skill all Time Lords learn.

“Easy,” she lies. “You don’t feel a thing. What we learnt in classes was just a _scare tactic_ , just like everything else they do. Might as well be slipping on a new coat. I know I’m still the same person you _begged_ to help you pass your classes.”

She gives him a teasing smile, and is relieved to see it returned.

“Wonderful,” the Doctor proclaims. “Now, I believe you asked me a question- what was it?”

“A few, yes,” she responds dryly, the same way she might have in childhood to reassure him. Clearly he’s nervous for his first time. And now that she looks properly, she can tell that he’s close, maybe six Earth months at most. Probably less. He’s putting it off. 

“I was asking how you managed to get injured on a planet that probably doesn’t even have a _word_ for hostility. As well as why you’re alone to begin with. That’s not what I’d heard, I-”

“Yes, yes, you said my dear. Susan. I’m no longer traveling with her, she clings to my side no more! She fell in love, you see, and so we parted ways.”

Missy stared at the Doctor dubiously. She’d never actually managed to get the full story of what happened with Susan from him. He’d always seemed too _upset_ by it. Now he seems perfectly willing to share, and hardly upset at all.

Well… satisfaction would bring her back, curiosity never killed her for long.

“Where did you stay for so long that _falling in love_ was an option?” Really, from the way he acted about Susan Missy had always assumed she _died,_ or got left behind _unintentionally,_ or there was some sort of _argument_...

The Doctor shakes his head. “Not long, no, but they both seemed sure of it. She was still afraid to leave me, too. So I had to give her a push, locked her out of the TARDIS. I’ll find her again eventually, but she deserves the chance to live her own life and start a family, wouldn’t you say?”

Missy raises an eyebrow. “So you went back to Gallifrey, then?”  
  
“What? No, no, no. Earth, my dear, it was Earth! Twenty second century, shortly after they fought off the Dalek invasion- we helped with that, as a matter of fact!”

 _Ah._ So he’d left her with humans, who she would certainly outlive, when she was still, realistically speaking, _young_ , for a Time Lord. He certainly wouldn’t have been able to be a housewife, at the age Susan must have roughly been. Missy can understand the guilt- though she had to wonder just how addled he was, and how long he had been that way to have thought that was even remotely acceptable. Maybe he’d been holding off on regeneration longer than she’d initially guessed.

She’s sure there must be more to that story, but she’s not sure how much she can get. “How long ago was that? Do you plan on going back for her soon? Are you traveling alone, now?”

“Oh, not so long, perhaps… two Earth years ago? A bit less? I am certain I’ll go back for her eventually, certainly. I had other travelers with me, though they’ve since left me. Everyone has come and gone… Chesterfield, Barbra, Vicki, Steven… right now a lovely young lady accompanies me, she is known as Dodo.”

“Dodo,” Missy repeats skeptically. She knows the least about this chunk of time, research or not, between the unpredictability of his TARDIS and the lack of contact he had with any other Time Lords. “Like the bird?”

“Yes, _precisely_!” He’s doing a terrible job of hiding his glee. Always had done, with her. Much like he’ll experience in the body after next. His joy at seeing her at UNIT had been _far_ from subtle, even, she imagines, to the humans. “Dodo Chaplet, it’s short for Dorthea, you see. Not very well-educated, but I’ve certainly no room to complain.”

Missy blinks, uncertain as to if he’s insinuating _he_ gave her the nickname or not, but decides it’s better not to ask. 

He doesn’t seem to notice how she’s thinking everything over- _overthinking_ , he’d have probably teased only a few decades ago for him, _as always_ \- instead moving the conversation right along. “And what about you, my dear? What have you been doing all this time? How did you end up regenerating, hm?”

He doesn’t say anything about how he just _left her_ on Gallifrey despite promises they’d travel together, and Missy doesn’t know if she loves him or hates him for it. That was still, even now, a sore spot for her, one he, even when he’s as old as her, refuses to acknowledge. _She_ certainly isn’t going to be the one to bring it up. Even if he’s avoided the subject for millennia- running as always.

  
“I- oh, I’ve been all over the place. Exploring, as you do. Decided our planet was a wee bit _rubbish_ , thought I could maybe find a better one.” She doesn’t tell him her original reason for leaving- chasing him. He doesn’t get that until he explains why he left her behind. If he ever does.

“Any luck?”  
  
“None, I’m afraid- oh, almost every planet is _better_ , but they’re also all _worse_.”

“Yes, I know what you mean. I do wonder if Earth can get there, someday…”

  
“Nothing stopping you from nipping to its future and _checking_ ,” Missy points out.

“Oh, no, no, no, much more fun if I develop as it does, isn’t it? With only vague knowledge of how things will go…” She stares at him, unconvinced. He has all the patience of the hedonist he secretly is at hearts. He eventually smiles sheepishly. “At any rate, I lack the means to, er… navigate my ship properly, as it were.”

The Doctor admitting he couldn’t actually fly his TARDIS was a memory Missy was going to keep _forever_. And lord over him, if Time was so kind as to let him keep this, though somehow she doubted it. 

“So, do you need to get back to this bird of yours?”  
  
Luckily he’s new enough to Earth in this young, young body of his that he doesn’t catch the double meaning of the slang to argue it, assumes she’d referring to the nickname only- or maybe he does know, and is merely choosing to not call her out, but that’s unlike the Theta Sigma she knew in childhood. “Oh, well, yes, I suppose so-” He stands, but otherwise doesn’t move.

“Well?”

He looks at her almost _bashfully_ , and it throws Missy for a loop. It’s been a long time since the Doctor knew her identity and looked at her like that. “Well- it’s just- would you like to come with me? To travel? I’m certain Dodo wouldn’t mind, given we just left Steven- or even if she did, I’d rather have you.”

 _Yes._ She wants almost _nothing_ more than that, she feels like she’d been waiting for him to repeat the offer he’d made his eleventh (whatever noise he’d made at the time about it only counting as his tenth, she can _count_ ) self this entire regeneration. 

To do so would damage time as much as if he’d just died, she was certain. If he remembered her, it would have come up, either during their time together at UNIT or once he met her again as this current version of her. She can’t possibly travel with him without becoming too important for him to forget. 

But oh, she wants to.

She looks him over, desperately trying to convince herself it’s a bad idea. That she can’t. He’s looking her over with so much hope it hurts. Though his hope is diminishing with every second she takes to answer.

This isn’t _her_ Doctor. It’s him, it’s always _him,_ she isn’t quite so small minded as those humans he picks up. But she knows that she’s been through so much _more_ than him. Even if it wouldn’t break Time, somehow… she couldn’t. It would break _her_ , to pretend that all their history hadn’t happened and she was only a few decades off from being the young boy he’d known. He’s practically still a boy himself. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t.” The apology is genuine. She’s not sure the last time she gave him a genuine apology. What she says next is just a twist on the truth, because she fears this him will be able to read her lies with ease, when she feels more like her childhood self than she has since leaving Gallifrey. “I’ve regenerated more than once, actually. Pal around sometimes with a later version of you. Good fun, but you’ll have to wait a bit until a version of me matches up with you, I’m afraid.” She finds herself reverting to childhood speech patterns, even, accent shifting towards one closer to his current one than the one she’d picked for this body.

He’d been frowning, but he brightens at the mention of them palling around, seeming to accept this as an acceptable reason for her rejection. Good. She doesn’t want him to think that it’s him. Her past selves will more than ensure his future selves feel that way- that she can’t change. 

He nods. “Well then.. I shall look forward to it, my dear.” He takes her hand and kisses it. “I don’t suppose you would be willing to accompany me out?”

She nods, remembers, abruptly, that she never got an answer to her initial question. Generally she leaves _him_ with unanswered questions, that’s how their dynamic works. So she leads him to the console room, only a few steps away. “How did you get that injury? You never said.”

“Oh, well, Dodo twisted her ankle, you see. So she had to stay behind on my TARDIS. I was wandering around when I thought I heard it taking off, so I began to run back to it only to hit my head! But now I see it must have only been yours, I _thought_ I was running in the wrong direction…”

Missy nods, and he grins at her. “So I suppose you could say, my dear, that you made me fall… for you.”

He’s been leading her outside without her noticing, as engaged in speaking with him as she is. Now, sure enough, Missy can see a familiar blue police box in the distance- though only so familiar as to know it’s _his_ , seeing as the silly old thing changes her appearance every-so-slightly every so often, despite pretending her Chameleon Circuit is still broken. That helps her know for certain, though, that this is indeed the one that belongs to him.

She groans, shoving him away from her towards his TARDIS but not bothering to hide how the flirtation had made her _grin_ , despite how wholly unlike this body such an undignified action is. 

He chuckles, waving a hand in farewell as he retreats back towards his TARDIS. She watches him until he makes it to the door- just to make sure he doesn’t fall again, she tells herself, even if she knows he’ll be safe.

“Hope to see you soon!” he calls, right before entering his ship, shutting the door before she has the chance to respond. She sighs, but his head pops out before she has the chance to turn around. “But not too soon! I’d better be seeing a younger version of you next, and not meet this version of you for quite some time, young lady!” He wags his finger at her, then retreats into his TARDIS for good. 

Missy collapses onto the ground, back against her TARDIS and ignoring the fact that she’ll have to change her dress after this. She’s not sure if she wants to laugh or cry, covering her face. Oh, she’d missed him. 

But she knows there’s no point in dwelling on the past. She gets up as his TARDIS begins to dematerialize, heading back into her own. She’ll see the version of him that matches her soon enough. When she does- _that’s_ the him she needs to pursue a friendship with. All in all, this did a splendid job of reminding her just _why_ she was trying in the first place. She misses him.

With any luck she’ll soon get him back. Or even if she doesn’t- Dodo Chaplet, Clara Oswald, River Song- they all leave him eventually. She’s a constant, in all his lives, and she’s certain he’ll come to appreciate that, now that he has a whole new regeneration cycle thanks to her gifting him Clara in the first place. It might take time, but she knows that he’ll come around eventually. She’ll be ready and waiting when he does. 

Now she has a reminder, and the will to really pull out all stops in order to get their friendship back. But first, a bit of business on Carnathon to take care of. Then she’d focus on _properly_ getting her friend back- whatever it took. Time to put her ruthlessness to a new cause.

**Author's Note:**

> Concrit welcome! This is my first time writing the first Doctor, so I really hope I have him down.


End file.
